CAD CAM Workstation Help

[Rookie1986]

Hey Guys,

I'm looking for some advice on building a CAD CAM Workstation, the budget is around the £1000 area and I'll be needing two monitors (I might be able to source these else where) and will also need Windows 7. I'm not sure if I should be looking at consumer based hardware (i5 CPU, GTX??? etc etc) or if the hardware aimed at developers (Xeon, Quadro etc etc) would be a better route to go.

The workstation that is currently used at work is the following spec and everything runs fine, if maybe a tiny bit slow:-

CPU: i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz
GPU: GeForce GTX 480 4GB
RAM: 12GB

I'm also wondering if I would see a big performance boost from a SSD??

Hope you guys can help advice me, thanks
/Rookie

[ik9000]

hey - it's a reasonable spec.

I use an i5-2500 with 8gig RAM and it's fine for CAD and CAM. 12gig would be nice to have. The more RAM the better for matrix crunching.... (FEM etc)

Graphics the 480 is ok, and a good buffer. If you're doing a lot of 3D manipulation you might want to go for a workstation graphics card.

I find my GTX460 fine for autocad and the like. It's only in really intensive 3D rendering and live manipulation that it lags. If it's just autocad then you can get away with quite a lowly card.

SSD will give performance boosts, yes. A lot of CAD CAM is writing and reading from the drive (more than you might think with background saves, and data dumps etc frequently going on, as well as loading LISPs, blocks, ctb files, etc and that's just in ACAD....) and the SSD makes this so much more pleasant.

[ik9000]

put your money into

1) SSD - samsung 840 pro.
2) Decent IPS Monitors. Dell P series or U series.
3) add a custom cpu cooler. Helps avoid throttling, which intensive rendering/3D manipulation can induce when it is constantly crunching away if the thermal profile is set wrong and the CPU cooler can't hack the pace.
4) upgrade CPU to i5-2500 or i7-2600 and keep your current mobo - but only if you can find the CPU for a good price. Newer generations not really that much of an improvement.
5) what RAM speed are you on? if less than 1600 upgrade, and go for low latency where possible
6) only then go for a new GPU. 3 generations on from the 480 now and the performance improvement is marked. However consumer GPU are targetting different performance metrics than the workstation GPUs so the speed increase may not be fully realised in CAD CAM if getting a R9-290 say. However that is not to say it won't work or be an improvement. My 460GTX runs CAD just lovely. I imagine therefore your 480 should too.

[ik9000]

I've just thought, how do you have 12GB of RAM? one 8 and one 4? Upgrade RAM to a paired set. You'll get the benefits of properly paired dual-channel RAM. 2x8 or 4x4 to give 16GB RAM. or just 2x4 to give 8GB RAM may well prove faster (Provided you're not maxing out the RAM usage)

if you're 4+4+4 you may find the mobo is clever enough to do increased rate in the paired sticks and slower in the third. Mine is. But not all do this, and some will force the slower rate for all RAM in a 3 stick configuration

[Rookie1986]

i don't think i explained this very well, I'm not looking to upgrade my works workstation but build my own setup from scratch for home use :S

[ik9000]

ok no worries - then you need (and this is really a need) minimum of 4 independent cores, possibly more depending on what software...

CPUs- don't go for intel K variants, you probably want the vt-d and similar work orientated chip features and won't be looking to overclock.

Intel CPUs
I would go for the i5-4670 (plain version, not the K,T or S)
or if you can afford it the i7-4771 (only a few pounds more than the 4770 and faster speed)

AMD CPUs you could consider the FX8350 for the 8-core goodness on offer.

min 8GB RAM 1600MHz or faster. Preferably in min 4GB sticks.

SSD and HDD combo. HDD for file storage only. SSD for running OS, programs and user files.

I will look more this eve - got to work now. What software do you intend to use, and what OS?

[satrow]

Intel CPUs
I would go for the i5-4670 (plain version, not the K,T or S)
or if you can afford it the i7-4771 (only a few pounds more than the 4770 and faster speed)

I'd plump for a middle route, Xeon E3-1230 v3, the pricing should be lower than the mid point between that i5 and the i7.

[Renaissanceman]

min 8GB RAM 1600MHz or faster. Preferably in min 4GB sticks.

Stick to 1600. Above that for a non-APU build you hit the law of diminishing returns.